Russia said Ukrainian drone attacks killed at least five people overnight and into Sunday, including three in moscow oblast and one in Belgorod. Andrei Vorobyov, the Moscow region governor, said a woman died in Khimki after a drone slammed into a house, while rescuers searched the rubble for another possible victim.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said it intercepted 556 drones overnight and another 30 after dawn, across 14 Russian regions, annexed Crimea, and the Black and Azov seas. Russia described the barrage as one of the largest Ukrainian aerial assaults of the war, and Ukraine’s defence ministry later said Moscow and the surrounding region had faced the largest-scale attack since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Moscow Region Damage
Vorobyov said apartment buildings and infrastructure sites were damaged in the attacks. He also said two other men were killed in the village of Pogorelki in the Mytishchi district. Sheremetyevo airport said drone debris fell on its grounds but caused no damage.
The Indian embassy in Russia said one Indian worker was killed and three others were injured during the drone attacks in the Moscow region. The details show the strikes were not limited to military sites: they reached homes, civilian buildings, and airport property inside Russia’s most closely watched region.
Ukraine's Later Claim
Later on Sunday, Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said Ukrainian forces had struck an oil refinery and two oil-pumping stations in the Moscow region. The SBU said, “Strikes on defence industry facilities, military infrastructure and oil logistics sites reduce the enemy’s ability to continue its war against Ukraine.” It also said, “These attacks show that even the heavily protected Moscow region is not safe.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strikes entirely justified and said, “Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified.” He also said, “This time, Ukrainian long-range capabilities reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war.”
The attacks came after Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin suggested the war could be nearing an end, but the new strike count and the damage in moscow oblast show the battlefield pressure has not eased. For residents in Khimki, Pogorelki, and the wider Moscow region, the immediate picture is damaged housing, search crews in the rubble, and a security response still unfolding around civilian sites.
Russia's Next Response
The next confirmed diplomatic and military step is the continuing Russian response to a barrage that crossed multiple regions and left the Moscow region with its deadliest toll in the reporting. Rescue workers were still searching for a possible additional victim in Khimki as the casualty count and damage assessment were still being compiled.
